Barack Obama is in! - Page 3

We're talking about whether Edwards is an "idiot" and a "moron," not George Bush's privileged path to public office. It's a separate issue.

OK. Whatever. I'm tired now.

Hmmm. Do you really believe this? Honestly? Or are you really just intent on scoring political points? Because Republicans were sayinig something completely different in 1995.

September 28, 1995 U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee


What will we tell the families of the troops?


It's really sad how inconsistent Republicans are on this issue, isn't it?

I'm just really, really glad that no Republicans anywhere referred to US involvement in the Balkans or the US involvement in Somalia as a "wag the dog" diversion from Lewinski! I mean, heavens! What would we tell the families!

The families are sensitive. They need coddling and protection.

I'm not quite sure how they dealt with their sons and daughters actually joining the military in the first place. You know, putting themselves in harms way and all. That must've been rough. Sleepless nights worrying whether or not they might actually get deployed to somewhere unsafe.

It must be hard for these families who have loved ones fighting for freedom of democracy, freedom of speech and the right to debate and then having our elected leaders, you know, actually exercising these freedoms. I'm sure that's got to be fucking hard to deal with.

[/sarcasm] For the sarcasm impaired.

I don't think you understand my position. If they want to deny funds, that's fine. They're not doing that though...they're saying "We support the troops but we don't think they should be there." Nice.

dense |dens|
adjective
informal (of a person) stupid.
See note at STUPID .

So who appointed SDW spokesperson for "the troops"?

I support the troops and I don't think they should be there.

Cut off funding for this new push and bring the troops home now! So no more of them are killed in a conflict that shouldn't exist.

Not really spokesperson. More like water-carrier.

That's fine and perfectly legitimate view in my opinion.

I didn't realize I was acting as one. I was just stating my opinion.

The wildest part is that no one actually knows what this guy stands for... he just looks uh, "CLEAN..." One look at his (rather skimpy) voting history should tell us that if he runs as a left leaning-centrist, he's a more fraudulent than even Hillary.

He'll only get anywhere by doing what all leftists do at election time- act "new" and "conservative."
Fight it all you want- that Dem majority was elected on flag-waving middle-of-the-road CONSERVATIVE themes.

Because you say so?

Indeed. But if you need more... Were you paying attention to how little they talked about ending the tax cuts, instant de-funding of the war, more gun control, etc during the election? And what happened to Murtha, Kennedy, Reid, and Pelosi in the weeks before the election? They disappeared because the real left wing nature of the Dem party does not play well in the electorate.

Murtha and Reid are left wing? Someone needs to get his liberal-o-meter recalibrated.

Yup, like raising the minimum wage, opposing the war in Iraq, reversing the tax cuts for the rich, expanding stem-cell research, and cutting interest rates on student loans. All things conservative Republicans strongly support. Oh wait...

Obama will not be nominated for Pres or VP. His appeal is his presence, and that will fade.

Well we now have a test case. John McCain: "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives." And barely a peep from the media. Yup, a double standard alright.

True. We'll see...but I don't think that would end debate about a liberally biased media.

The liberally biased media took a pass at attacking a popular conservative, but jumped on the chance to attack a popular liberal?

Yea... my family makes 32K a year and I got a tax cut, like other people who pay taxes. I sure am rich. Maybe you want the typical tax cuts for non-payers (wealth redistribution, the liberal mantra)

Minimum wage hike= more unemployment.
Opposing the war= American and Republican defeat go hand in hand...
Tax cuts for the rich= typical liberal class warfare rhetoric

I'm all for the student loan thing, but never heard a Dem talk about it during the campaign...

Newsmax and Fox News have reported the story as of now. So, it's not being ignored.

Wow. How could so many of these bullet point/analogies be so wrong?

Well, then... please refute them, Mr. Gate.

The low minimum wage is the number one cause of unemploymentbecause the minimum wage is so low, in most places it puts people in extreme poverty (try being a single mom with kids on $10,000 a year), they're forced to take on multiple jobs in order to survive.

It's true that sudden minimum wage increases cause temporary unemployment spikes (almost entirely of high school kids), however decent minimum wages themselves are a vital part of our economy.

Even if you're too sociopathic to concern yourself about innercity kids starving with both parents struggling at 80-hour jobs to survive, look at it another way: pay increases given to them will be immediately loosed back into the economy, which is still a net win for society.

I've heard your wishful thinking before. Think wiretapping!

Soup line America sucks. Thanks for the well-reasoned response. I don't mind an increase, it just that what the Dems are proposing is too much too fast. Small businesses like mine WILL be laying off those "single moms" who need it- or we can just all go out of business and have no paychecks for anyone. The reality is that the Min Wage fight is only important in the corridors of power because union wages are often based on the MW times a negotiated multiplier. It's a little back scratching for those Democratic union votes.

Do people deserve a living wage? Of course. Do we need to address how much in taxes EVERYONE pays and how that hurts the working poor more than anyone? Yep.

Uh...OK. So the increase affects starving mothers and children, but in the same breath, it only ends up affecting "high school kids."

You can't have it both ways. It's also clear you really have no idea about who actually earns minimum wage. The vast majority of minimum wage earners live in households with incomes of $45,000 a year plus. That means, simply, that most minimum wage earners are not the sole income earners in their households. There are, from the last information I'm aware of, about two million people earning minimum wage as the the sole income earners. So, the increase will certainly help those people...if they keep their jobs.

But they very well may not. Most entry level, non-skilled positions already pay significantly more than the minumum. Fast food restaurants often start at $7.00 or more per hour...right now. Now I know what you'll say...that's not a livable wage. But the minimum wage is not intended to be a livable wage. It's intended to be the minimum legal compensation. It exists to prevent near-slave labor, to set a standard that promotes human dignity. My argument is simply this...$5.85 an hour does just that.

As for how it will cause unemployment, well guess what? It will. A personal anecdote: My father recently heard from a friend of his that owns a small business. He has several employees who are currently making $8.00 an hour (I don't recall what it is they do). As soon as the minimum wage passed, they went to the owner and immediately wanted a $2.00 an hour raise. Can you blame them? Of course not. This owner now believes he may have to reduce his workforce. This is the real effect of boosting the mimum wage. It will marginally help the small portion of the workforce (less than 2%). It will also reduce the number of jobs available...some of which (I'd argue most of which) already pay more than the minimum.

A personal anecdote: My father recently heard from a friend of his who owns a small business. He has several employees who are currently making $8.00 an hour (I don't recall what it is they do). As soon as the minimum wage passed, they went to the owner and immediately wanted a $2.00 an hour raise. Can you blame them? Of course not. But the owner explained to them that they were already making above the minimum wage, and so an increase in the minimum wage would not affect them. They sighed and said "Oh well. We thought we'd try." The owner explained to them that they were, of course, free to seek employment elsewhere if they needed to make $10 an hour. They replied that they'd rather stay where they were. This is the real effect of boosting the minimum wage. It will help the small portion of the workforce (less than 2%) making the actual minimum wage and leave the remainder untouched.

No. There's two distinct groups of minimum wage workers. Adults struggling to make ends meet and high school students. If you need to cut jobs, and currently employ both, you'll cut the high school students first. History supports this. The adults have worked and will work for you longer, and provide a better ROI for the wages.

So, a low minimum wage hurts the poor, and while minimum wage increases does cause temporary unemployment, this doesn't greatly affect the group most in need of the increases in the first place.


What did I say about high school kids again? Oh right. We're concerned with poor people. Conflating needy minimum wage earners with well-to-do high school students is meaninglesshigh school kids are clearly the dominant majority here.


I'm curious about the details of that statistic. For example, does it include people earning precisely minimum wages, or does it go slightly higher? Do you remember where you got that from?


This is where we disagree. The minimum wage needs to be a living wage, and insofar as I can tell, was always intended to be one.


Midwinter responded here most eloquantly.

Defined "untouched"


Because from what I see there are a lot of tight small business owners right now that find it difficult to give people raises, and will find it even more difficult to do so when they are having to pay their low end earners more money.



Note: I am not an opponent of the increase. I support it 100%. That said, I believe it is disingenuous to state that for the most part people earning above the line are untouched.

History? Like what history? And what if you don't employ high school students?


OK. I'll keep the position in mind.


I don't remember.


Well fine, disagree. Apparently you're one of the people out there that believe you are owed a decent living standard. At least you're honest about it.

But here's the thing. Business owners don't employ employees out of the goodness of their hearts. They desperately need employees to stay in business. They can't run everything by themselves.

Raising the minimum wage too quickly does cause very slight inflation, but this only affects certain markets, and is negligible considering the benefits of the wage increase in the first place.

You just made that second part up. Just pulled it right from your ass.

It was an article cited by Chris Cuilla documenting the effects of the last wage increase. I'll see if I can find it.

Also, from Wikipedia: "Over all, there is no consensus between economists about the effects of minimum wages on youth employment, although empirical evidence suggests that this group is most vulnerable to high minimum wages."

It cites this PDF, which I haven't read.


I didn't say "decent" living standard. I said a living standard. The current minimum wage pays for food and living in tight quarters (maybe a two-room apartment for a family of five).

What happens if the family wants to, say, not be naked? What if someone has to make an ER visit? Do they deserve luxuries, like books, or a television? Or running water? Heat?

This is why so many poor people need to take on multiple jobs. If the minimum wage, were say, $7-8, this would be different.

If 1997's $5.15 had kept steadily increasing with inflation, it would be about $6.90 today, and $7.35 in 2009. In other words, it would have been higher than the recent House of Reps bill, but would have been far less drastic in terms of displacing jobs.

But how many people are our there that actually work for minimum wage? Almost anyone can get a job for more. I've already stated, we have McDonalds paying $7-8 in many places. Labor jobs pay much more too. Seriously...do you know what kind of a...(sorry)...loser one has to be in order to make the minimum?

According to your quote, 2,000,000.

Why does that matter?